


Last the Night

by Elleth



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Ambiguously hopeful ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: Lalli and Sigrun shelter in a certain church.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yuuago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuago/gifts).



"Hey, Twig. Toodle over here a moment. It probably won't do any good, but -" 

Sigrun waved at Lalli and wished she hadn't when a new spike of pain stabbed through her arm. Anyone not her would probably have blacked out all the way, but it was a good thing that she was sitting propped up against the altar, even though the damn cross on it was poking its cold edges into her back. 

When she'd fought down the black spots in her vision, Lalli was standing in front of her, watching, then touched a hand to his forehead, giving a slight nod to Sigrun. 

"Oh, right." She wiped her forehead with her good hand; it came away slick with cold sweat, but after all that'd happened, that wasn't exactly a surprise. 

Even she couldn't deny any longer that she was sick. Or that she was probably going to die. 

She felt like crap, and it wasn't just because the trolls (and more damn ghosts, according to Tuuri's panicked translations of Lalli and Reynir's shouting) had come at the driving tank in a stampede she'd never seen or heard of before - that was pretty much a giant, just not in a fused-together way and that much harder to fight because of it - stopped them, and trying to make their stand, had scattered her team. One of the things had clawed her arm, ripped open her almost-healed stitches, and even the troll had recoiled from the gush of pus that'd drained out. She hadn't even had a chance to stab it. 

Troll wounds healed messily and often hurt late, so how should she have known if even Mikkel hadn't noticed? It was an infection if she ever saw one, and it hadn't taken long for it to catch up to her all the way that it hadn't done so far, so when Lalli had pushed and shoved her off the battlefield, she hadn't been able to put up much of a fight any longer. As much as she wanted to go out there to look for the rest of her team, she didn't even trust her legs to carry her any longer. Not that she hadn't tried anyway, but Lalli, restlessly on edge as he was, had shoved her back down every time.

It was all too much. _Vacation. Yeah, right._

It was the kind of fight you could tell that there wasn't a comeback from. She was cold, even though Lalli had laid his coat over her shoulders on top of her own, and he was shivering like a twig in a storm. It wasn't far off the mark, either. The weather'd turned colder, and wind was blowing in through the holes in the church windows; the old building was so drafty it didn't even count as a real shelter, but at least nothing had followed them in, and none of the corpses laid out in rows and rows spooked Lalli. No brain-death ghosts there, then. That was something, she guessed, although she'd rather go out in a fight. She'd even rather die trying beating up ghosts than like a peasant who didn't even have a chance getting into any afterlife that was worth it. 

She pulled Lalli's coat off her shoulders and thrust it back at him. He slipped it on without comment, burrowing his hands in the coat pockets, and gave her one of his unreadable looks. 

At least now he wouldn't freeze. Sigrun nodded. "Good. Now rest. Bed. Sleep. I know Tuuri taught you that one after last time." 

Twig looked at her like he'd understood, but his mouth was set in a thin, downturned line that deepened at the mention of his cousin's name. 

"It's not a suggestion, it's an order. Or-der. You should know that one - no?" 

Blankface. Lalli's attention was on a spot past the altar, and when Sigrun turned to look at a golden glow rising in the corner of her eyes, for a moment she thought she was staring straight into Valhalla. 

No golden hall, though. It was just a candle, old and cobwebbed, but there was no one there who could have lit it. Weirder still, it didn't flicker. The glow sat almost like a rune around it, or a - she scrambled for the word of the glow of light that went around the head of the people in the church windows - halo. Like a halo. And she might have been imagining it, but it felt like some warmth was flowing back into her fingers where the light touched. 

"What," she said. Lalli had closed his eyes and for all the world he looked like he was asleep on his feet for a moment, until his eyes snapped open again and the silvery glow in them faded. 

"Safe here, no danger." He patted her shoulder, carefully, with a look that told her it was his revenge for all the shoulder-punching she'd done. Any other time, and it would have made her laugh. "Sleep now; she will find you in the dreaming. And she'll find the others. Sleep in the light, until morning. I will watch." 

" _She_?" 

"Friendly spirit." Lalli sat next to her on the altar's steps, not close enough to touch but closer than he'd come to anyone other than Emil. "In the morning it will be safe. Sleep."

"Oh, good," Sigrun answered with a nod at the candle. "Sorry about breaking into your place, but it's not like we made anything much worse; it was already pretty broken up. Thanks." 

She closed her eyes. Maybe if she could hang on that long, if this wasn't all just a fever dream, she'd make it after all.


End file.
